In the dark

Fedor on the satphone: “Wishing a peaceful and joyous Christmas to all who celebrate the Orthodox Christmas. It’s a gift from God that we live to see this special day. All is well on board. My Christmas Eve on the ocean was peaceful, with nothing exciting. I’ve got a good wind of 12-15 knots from east. This wind allows me to proceed straight to west. The only thing that bothers me is a complete darkness. The sky is shut tight with the thick clouds that don’t let any sun rays to pass through. At night it’s pitch black. Last night the accumulators worked quite a bit and now there is no sun to recharge them. There. Is. No. Sun. Rowing helps to keep my mind off this utter darkness but as soon as I stop working – I get scared. At night, it’s particularly unnerving, when I can’t even see the oar spoons which are only three meters away. I can hear the ocean, the waves, the wind, but I can see nothing. It’s precisely in these kinds of moments I feel extremely small: like a grain of sand lost in this vast ocean. The thing that keeps me focused is Our Lord’s Prayer.”

Due to the low batteries on board, our phone call with Fedor was short, only 5 minutes. According to the satellite picture of the region where Fedor and Tourgoyak are at this moment (20° South Latitude and 80° West Longitude), the overcast is 99%.  This means that there is only 1% of sun that reaches the surface of the ocean.  Such conditions will persist until January 10, 2014 according to a cloud cover forecast from www.passageweather.com.

The map of the Tourgoyak’s course: http://yb.tl/konyukhov2

The detailed map of the course: www.oceanrowing.com/Konyukhov/Pacific2013/dist_map.htm

Translated by Tatiana Koreski